Wutai Flea
by wingeddserpent
Summary: A string of drabbles about Yuffie Kisaragi. Note: There are a few mentions of racism.


The first three years are the hardest. This land is not like hers; it is too brown and too flat, and its mountains are too few and too jagged. This place is not like her home.

The towns are no better than the wilderness, are maybe worse with their ugly buildings and people who watch her with untrusting eyes and call her _Wutai Flea_. They remember the war too, but not as she does. They remember Wutain savagery and people less than human. Yuffie remembers none of these things—she remembers the slaughter of her people.

It is apparent there is no place in their towns for her.

So, she finds a place that is strange to her, but not unpleasantly so. The trees are much different from the ones at her home, but they are green and beautiful and comforting and so she stays in the forest. She hunts for her food, drinks her fill from the stream, and lives like a true savage in the wood.

When she begins to grow, clothing once loose now hindering movement, she robs a girl traveler wearing shorts and a green shirt. She takes also a piece of materia. Her life begins again.

* * *

><p>The knowledge is like breathing. It's always there and never stops until you're dead.<p>

She knows—knows like she breathes—that she is as useless as Cid's godforsaken rocket, the one all of them know is never going to meet the stars.

Despondently, she scuffs the grass with her yellow sneaker. Some ninja she is—but when thieving shoes, you can't be choosy, not when you're fifteen and on the run.

It's been five years since she left, to save Wutai, and she has nothing to show except a handful of materia and yellow sneakers.

Useless, she's goddamn useless.

There has to be a way to redemption. Leviathan is not unforgiving—surely he will not let Wutai continue to suffer for its losses?

Yuffie grimaces, glancing at the rocket that tilts towards the sky, and then turns her gaze to the coast. In the horizon, she fancies she can almost see the mountains of her home.

They're so close, and once she gets them there, she'll have so much more to show for her time away. Then, Wutai can become what it used to be.

Then she won't be useless; she'll be the savior of Wutai, its Single White Rose.

* * *

><p>Anger and silence, these things are easy. They're easier than forgiveness and understanding. They're easier than bridging that gap you've let grow.<p>

Remembering is hard. You can remember that war clearer than she, you can remember the fire and the blood and the screams. You can remember their General, with eyes like ice and a soul colder.

She can't. You know this.

So you don't listen to her counsel. She's nothing but a war-monger, a child still.

Part of you wryly acknowledges that your daughter believes in love and justice and Leviathan.

You are no fool.

The only things that exist are technology and gil and blood but you can never let anyone else know this. For your people, that would be more disheartening that losing the war itself.

They need something to believe in. Leviathan, you do too.

Yuffie Kisaragi.

But anger and silence and bitterness—these things are easy. Cynicism is easy.

And all of these things—save for maybe anger—are the things your daughter is worst at. She is alive and loud and brash and moving and hopeful.

You drive her away with your silence, you know this.

There is nothing harder than watching your daughter walk away, again.

* * *

><p>It's an off-hand comment, not meant to make her hurt. But the sting of it lasts well into the night. She sits awake, watching the stars with vapid intensity and knows that she's too sensitive for her own good.<p>

She didn't know—how could she know? She'd never met a real Wutain before, had only heard about them in a historical sense.

And Yuffie had taken great pains to hide from them what and who she was, anyway.

But it doesn't make the hurt lessen any.

It feels like Tifa's slapped her hard in the face, instead of just said a sentence or two. Frankly, Yufffie isn't sure what she expected of people from Midgar—but she knows that if she's let it get this far, then it's gone too far.

She doesn't need to care what they think of her, all that matters is the materia. All that matters is her country, her home, her _people_.

Ties like that? A person from Midgar could never understand.

All they know is what they have been taught:

Shinra is benevolent, Mako energy is salvation, gil is God, and Wutains are heathen savages without morals.

Yuffie blinks hard and tells herself to stop caring.


End file.
